


this is where you leave him

by Adversarial



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Body Shots, Car Sex, Hangover, Light Bondage, M/M, Morning After, Post-End, Semi-Public Sex, Vomiting, dubious crossdressing, pat and paul don't get paid enough for this, people can't productively handle feelings for shit, there's marktom if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 11:24:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11622537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adversarial/pseuds/Adversarial
Summary: You stare at the figure before letting your head fall back against your pillow. Your hangover is killing you. Did you get wasted and hire a hooker? Why were you wasted?Where are you?... Why are you handcuffed to the bed?---("and here you are. leaving again." you can't read his expression. "amazing how that works.")





	this is where you leave him

You wake up with a murderous hangover.

You can't actually remember the last time you'd had one this bad, you realize blearily. You haven't really gone on a major bender since you'd moved to the city ten years ago. Too busy running the army, taking over the world, and... Oh christ why did it still feel like someone was digging a nail into your skull how much did you even _drink_ fucking hell. 

You try to open your functional eye, abort the gesture because holy fuck, light is painful, and scrunch your eye shut before moving to cover it

with your hands

which you cannot move

seeing as they're handcuffed to the bed and all. Shit. You would have probably figured that out from the straining pain coming from your shoulders if you hadn't been distracted by the searing one in your skull. 

How did you get here, again? 

You crack open your eye for the second time and it immediately tears up. You move to scrub at it with your fist, earn yourself a clanking sound from the handcuffs for your efforts, and settle for blinking rapidly until your vision clears. You don't recognize this ceiling. 

Craning your neck hurts for some reason, but it helps you figure out that you are, in fact, handcuffed to a bed, that the bed has a nice paisley comforter that has been cast aside to reveal that you are buck-fucking-naked, and that there is someone asleep in the bed with you. Messy brown hair, pink sequined minidress, drooling slightly. Said someone twitches, gasps for breath, and begins to snore at a decibel that puts you in mind of fighter jets and, oh. There's your headache again. Amazing.

You let your head fall back against your pillow for the moment. Did you... Did you get wasted and hire a hooker? Why were you wasted? Where were you? 

Where was your phone?

The thought made you jerk upright, yanking your shoulders and making you wince before you scrambled into a sitting position. You couldn't lose that phone. There was confidential information on that phone. Pat and Paul had just sent you the latest information about the Haitian Campaign-

Something about the name jarred your memory. What was it about that campaign that left you feeling so-

\---

("-total failure," patryck was saying, when you finally looked up at him. you were reading stats on your computer that confirmed that the mission was, in fact, a total failure. you weren't happy. you weren't happy at _all_.

"care to tell me what exactly happened to two thousand of our best-trained men?" you say, letting a subtle hint of warning into your tone. this wasn't the first major loss your army had taken this week. hell, this wasn't the third major loss your army had taken this week, and your blood pressure was high enough to launch a space probe. god, you needed a drink.

patryck looks grim. "none of us thought to read up on haitian history, sir. they apparently have a reputation of animosity towards european control and a propensity for guerrilla warfare. when we got into the mountains-"

"i've heard enough. just," you massage your temples as patryck shifts uncomfortably, waiting for your verdict. "get out. just get out and cancel my meetings. all of them."

"but, sir-"

"if you are not out of my office in the next ten seconds, i will personally ensure that you serve as target practice for the two thousand new recruits that we're going to have to train." with that, he's gone in a flash of blue overcoat, leaving you alone with your migraine. what you need is a five-day leave of absence, but you know that you couldn't pull that off. not after the week you'd had.

what you could do, you mused, was go and get yourself a stiff fucking drink.)

\---

Right. That. 

You shifted again, sitting up against the headboard and trying to arrange your hands so that you weren't killing your own circulation. You were in a bedroom somewhere, that much was clear. It was small, painted an inoffensive shade of mauve, and boasted a few chests of drawers and a nice wooden bedside table. Two doors. By bending your neck as far as it would go, you could just barely see a set of linen curtains around what you guessed was a window. When the hooker in the pink dress stopped snoring for a second, you just barely make out the sounds of birdsong. 

The entire setup, minus the hooker and the handcuffs, is startlingly banal. You find yourself relaxing despite the sudden rising nausea you feel. Fuck, this is an awful hangover.

You turn to study the hooker a little more closely, nudging one sequined pink side with your foot. "Pardon me," you mumbled, as the hooker groaned and turned over in their sleep, "but-- hey, wait, don't fall back asleep on me, fuck-- do you have the keys for these handcuffs?"

"Fuckoff," the hooker replied, eyes still shut. Male, then, despite the dress. Drunk you always had weird taste in men. "'M tryna sleep off a hangover here."

"Do you have the keys to my handcuffs," you enunciated, prodding the stranger with your foot again. "Because I need to find my phone as soon as possible, and I assure you that, if you don't let me out now, you will quickly come to regret it."

He groaned at that before opening an eye to glare at you. Your heart stopped.

You knew that jet-black eye far too well.

You were frozen in place as Tom opened his mouth to say something scathing, before he blanched and began to vomit all over your legs. 

"Fuck," he rasped when he was done, head still bowed over your now-disgusting feet. "Sorry about that." 

"What the hell are you doing here?" You finally manage, after an uncomfortable silence. You hadn't noticed the hickies on his throat and shoulders, standing out in painful relief on his skin. A dizzy, sinking feeling hits you all at once. 

Tom let out a hacking cough before finally turning his face towards yours. His eyes widened before he groaned again, burying his face in his hands. 

"Tom? Where the hell are we?"

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," he said. He dragged his palms down his face before blinking at you again. " _Fuck_."

Chunks of whatever had been in Tom's stomach are sliding slowly down your calves and onto the bedsheets. Outside, a bird warbled, oblivious to the fact that your life was crashing down around you in spectacular fashion.

So this was what rock bottom felt like.

You were expecting Tom to shout at you. Maybe make some bad wordplay. Instead, he lets out a pained exhale. "Do you remember anything about last night?"

"Nothing," you reply, and he pulls himself off the bed and begins to stalk around the room, his minidress doing nothing to hide the raised welts on his thighs. 

"Neither do I," he says, eyebrows knitting together as he rummages through the top drawer of the nightstand. "Fuck. Is this the key for the handcuffs?"

He holds up a small silver key and you shift uncomfortably in your pool of vomit. The smell of mothballs and Tom's puke is making the bile rise in your throat. "I hope so. Tom-"

"Before you finish that thought," he says, gaze focused a meter to your left, "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to know what we're doing here. I don't want to know what the hell happened last night. I want you to talk to me as little as possible about anything that doesn't involve us cleaning up and exiting this flat as soon as possible, and then after that I want to go back to pretending that you're dead." His expression is unreadable. "Can you agree to this?"

"Yes," you say, without hesitation, and you ignore whatever pang of emotion that gives you while you let him fiddle with your handcuffs.

\---

("c'mon," you found yourself whispering into his ear. he shuddered when you licked a stripe up his neck. "just like old times?"

the two of you are on your third bar of the night. you hadn't been walking straight since you'd left the first. 

"dunno that we've done this before," tom whispered back as you rub salt onto the spit you'd left. "i hate tequila."

"then i'll go first," you say, trying three times to push the lime slice between his teeth before finally getting it into his mouth. you're swaying slightly in his lap, letting him steady you by your hips. 

you grab your shot glass, almost fumble it, and down the tequila in one gulp. you swallow, drag your tongue up the salt you'd left on his neck, go to bite at the lime in his mouth. your foreheads bump together.

it shouldn't be sexy, you manage to think through the alcohol haze. there's nothing sexy about doing body shots, not really. but you're drunk and he's laughing into your mouth because apparently you'd started making out with him despite the lime and 

you'd missed this, you realize, as his hands find their way under your shirt. you'd missed him more than you'd thought.)

\---

"That should do it," he says, and you hesitate to look at him while you rub the circulation back into your fingers. He gives you an odd look. "Something up?"

"No," you lie. "Do you know where the bathroom is?" 

He checks one of the doors and gestures you over. You do your best not to drip vomit onto the floor as you walk to him. 

"You should, uh. Probably wash that off," he says, and you obligingly step into the shower while Tom drops onto his knees in front of the toilet. 

The hot water feels like a blessing on your skin, numbing your headache a little as Tom retches on the other side of the shower curtain. Whoever lives here must care about their appearance, because the soap and shampoo are both expensive and pleasantly-scented. You try to ignore the bruises on your chest and neck as you scrub yourself down. 

You hear Tom spit and let out a hiss of protest when he flushes the toilet, instantly turning your shower icy. "Bastard," you grumble, and he gives you a low chuckle.

"Sorry," he says, sounding not sorry at all, and for a second you're back ten years and still living with Edd and Matt and you're going to make sure his bacon burns when you're cooking breakfast- 

You're brought back by the sounds of Tom turning on the faucet to brush his teeth, and you hastily shut off the tap and reach for a towel before the water has a chance to get cold again. "Are you using a stranger's toothbrush?"

"Yep." You hear him gargling as you wrap the towel around your waist, sticking your head out from behind the shower curtain.

"Don't you care that-"

"Nope," he responds, replacing the toothbrush in the holder and taking a moment to inspect his teeth in the mirror. The sequins on his dress sparkle at you when he bends over to wash his face. "I'm also probably going to borrow some clothes, possibly some food, and leave an IOU on the counter when I leave. You're welcome to join me."

"Why do I get the feeling you've done this before," you say, and he stiffens before you have a chance to fully process what you've said.

"I don't have to put up with your shit," he growls. "I'm trying to show you some courtesy because I have a bitch of a hangover and don't want to deal with your bullshit melodrama right now, but God knows you don't deserve it." 

"I'm sorry," you say, and he's turning to glare at you, because it's not about your snide little comment about his sex life anymore, is it.

"Get out and let me shower," he says, and you obey, retreating to the bedroom and letting him slam the door behind you. 

\---

(by the fifth bar, it's a miracle that either of you are still upright. you cling to his arm as he pushes unsteadily through the throng of people on the dance floor, dragging you to the men's bathroom and locking the door behind you before pushing you up against the wall. 

you'd had sex in the ten years you'd been gone. nothing special, nothing meaningful. nothing like tom, and from the looks of things tom is intent on making up for lost time. his kisses taste like liquor and you giggle, honest-to-god giggle, when his stubble scratches your face. he pulls away for a second to rock your hips together and you keen, nails scraping uselessly down the back of his shirt when he laughs and does it again. 

"feels good, huh?" he breathes in your ear and you nod, shivering when he chuckles. "'m missed you. doesn't feel as good with 'nyone else."

you nod again, more enthusiastically, and he keeps rocking up against you, just you and him and the loud music from outside the bathroom. he nuzzles at your collarbone and you can't remember why you ever left him, why anyone would leave when this feels so good, so right, just you and him and the bathroom wall and the friction when he moves against you. you moan.

he stops moving suddenly and you're about to either start cursing or sobbing when he grabs you by the jaw and makes you look him right in the eye. "promise you aren't gonna leave again?"

even as far gone as you are, you're surprised by his earnestness. tom isn't ever earnest. maybe it's more than your cock that makes you shake your head yes. 

he gives you the smile, the awkward tom smile that got you into his bed that first time back in high school, and your heart does something fluttery and soft. 

that smile turns into a smirk when you are suddenly made very aware of his hands on your crotch and then he drops to his knees and pulls your out your dick and you're gone.)

\---

Whoever owns this apartment must be a large guy, because the only pants that you can find that fit you are sweats. When Tom finally emerges from the shower, wearing only a towel and carrying his dress in one hand, he finds you staring out the window, doing your best to ignore how the daylight makes your migraine worse. It's looking close to noon.

"I don't recognize any of this," you admit. "I have no idea how we got out here."

"I have a few guesses," he says, digging through a chest of drawers and pulling on a t-shirt. You wait for him to elaborate. He doesn't.

"Any idea where my phone might be?" you finally ask, when the silence gets too uncomfortable. 

Tom makes a noncommittal sound, staring out the window with you momentarily before heading towards the door that didn't lead to the bathroom. "Kitchen's this way if you want to make breakfast."

You follow him through a narrow hallway to a small kitchen, help him dig through the cabinets until you finally find a bottle of aspirin. Tom crushes the pill between his teeth while you wait for yours to dissolve in a cup of water. "Works faster this way," he explains, "but it tastes like shit."

You almost missed the sound of the front door opening, but you sure as hell didn't miss the deep voice calling for Tom. 

"Mark? That you?" Tom shouts, and you wince as you finally down your aspirin. A tall, blonde man with impeccably tailored clothes strides into the kitchen, dropping a tote bag on the countertop. Tom looks relieved.

"Don't give me that look. You owe me a huge favor this time around, sweetheart," Mark says, and you flush when he turned a piercing gaze on you, eyes sweeping down the length of your body. "Are those my pants?"

"Yes, yes they are," Tom replies with a wink, and Mark just laughs. 

"Why am I not surprised. Anyways, I managed to get your phones back from the bar. They're dead, but they're better than nothing." Mark dumps the tote bag out onto the counter, spilling your phone, Tom's phone, and the majority of your clothing from the night before. Your underwear is conspicuously absent. "Wallets are another story. Start canceling your credit cards now."

"You're a godsend, Mark. Dunno what I'd do without you," Tom says, giving Mark a smile that makes you feel something surprisingly nasty in your gut.

You don't get a chance to dissect the feeling before Mark is replying. "Consider us even. I owe you for letting me into Matt's room that one time, remember?"

Tom laughs. "Yeah, classic."

Mark smiles back and then sighs. "I'd love to stick around to chat with you and your boytoy of the moment-" the designation makes you bristle and you're about to interrupt when he continues, "- but I need to get to Jon's memorial service. It's the three-year anniversary and Eduardo's car broke down, so I'm driving the both of us."

Tom is silent for a moment. "Yeah. You do that. Take care, alright? And thank you again."

Mark nods before turning to look at you. "It was nice getting to meet you sober, for whatever that's worth." With that, Mark is gone again, leaving you alone with Tom and a tension that you hadn't noticed until Mark's absence let it creep back in.

"Thank God he didn't recognize you," Tom mutters, going to dig through the fridge. "Especially today. Of course it's the three-year anniversary today. Of course it is." 

You have no idea what he's talking about but decide to let it slide. "Anything good in the fridge?"

"Eggs. Bread. Salad, I guess." You step up behind him to peer into the fridge, accidentally bump your hip against his. He jolts away like you'd burned him. "Don't fucking touch me." 

"It was an accident," you say, as placatingly as possible. 

"Don't care. Back off and find a frying pan or something." He pulls out a carton of eggs. "Scrambled or fried?"

You snort at that and he turns to glare at you. "What's so funny, huh?"

"Remember the last time you tried to make eggs? And you managed to catch your hair on fire?" Matt and Edd had refused to let Tom near the stove after that. It had made the chore roster a little awkward, but the four of you managed. Always had.

He pushed past you to start up the stove, snatching the frying pan from your hand. "That was fifteen years ago. You can let it go now."

"I didn't mean to-"

"No, you didn't," Tom said, as he cracked an egg into the pan. "Now back off."

\---

("if you two try to have sex in my car, i swear to god that i will kick you both out and leave you to rot by the side of the highway," mark says, and you laughed as you bumped your forehead against tom's chest, the sequins of his dress scratching your face. streetlights keep illuminating him for brief flashes, enough for you to tell that he was looking down at you. 

"we should totally fuck 'n the car," tom whispers to you, and you laugh harder. "like righ' now. we should fuck righ' now." 

"i can hear you, you know," mark says, and tom shoots you a shit-eating grin. "jesus christ, tom. i haven't seen you this wasted since new year's." 

"'s a special occasion," tom says, putting a finger up to his lips in drunken conspiration. you stifle a moan when he trails his hands up your thigh. "haven't seen this guy 'n years." 

you're keeping as quiet as possible while tom starts kneading at your crotch. "is he an old friend of yours?" mark asks, and tom pauses for a moment at that.

"sorta," he slurs, flexing his fingers before squeezing you hard. you yelp, cling to his bare shoulders. "more'va hatefuck i guess. but like. a loving hatefuck." 

"are you seriously having sex in the backseat of my car," mark deadpans, and tom laughs as he unzips your fly. "i think i actually hate you right now."

"y'know you love me," he laughs, rubbing at your cock through your underwear as you lean back against the seat, squirming at the contact. 

"unfortunate but true," mark says, and you can just barely see his grim smile in the rearview mirror. you're wondering what that means until tom is shifting in his seat to rub his cheek against your erection and then you're not thinking much of anything at all. "seriously? you're giving him a blowjob? in my car?"

"mhmm," tom hums, and you're clawing at the upholstery of mark's car when he nips at you through your briefs. "not sure 'f i'm gonna see him again 'fter this, y'know? you're gonna ghost 'n the morning, aren'tcha?" he's smirking up at you when he says that, and it hurts more than it should.

"sounds like a real asshole," mark opines, and you open your mouth to say something but tom's breath is hot on your cock and all you can manage is a gasp.

"he is," tom says. "but i think i love 'm anyways."

"unfortunate," mark replies, and tom laughs.

"yeah.") 

\---

You find a charger that fits your phone while Tom is busy making breakfast. When you plug it in, you are immediately greeted by thirteen missed messages from Paul, Patryck, and a number of your high-ranking officials. You send Paul a hasty text to call off the search party. The second after it sends, your ringtone goes off.

"Where the hell have you been?" Patryck shouts. Normally, you would be enraged by his breach in deference, but it's been a disconcerting morning. You let it slide.

"Confidential," you say, and Tom gives you a pained look before returning to staring at the stove. "Can you arrange for transport to the location from my phone GPS as soon as possible?"

"Yes, sir," Patryck says, and you can hear the click of his boots as he sprints to the auto garage himself. "I'll be there shortly, sir."

"Thank you, Patryck," you say, and if that's an uncharacteristic thing to hear from Red Leader, Patryck doesn't comment on it. You hang up.

"So you're ditching, huh?" Tom's still turned away from you, focused intently on the frying pan. "Why am I not surprised."

"Isn't that what you wanted? You seemed very intent on going back to pretending that I'm dead." You're watching the tension in his back, the way his shoulders hunch through the thin cotton of Mark's t-shirt. You hate that he's wearing Mark's t-shirt.

"I'm still amazed that you were there when I woke up at all. I bet you'd have ditched already if you didn't need me to unlock the handcuffs."

"What the hell do you want from me, Tom?" You're raking the fingers of your robotic hand through your still-damp hair. Your headache is coming back. "You say you don't want to talk to me, you spend all morning telling me to piss off, you get angry when it looks like I'm leaving. What do you want from me?" 

He's silent. You can hear the eggs sizzling and popping in the pan. You try again. "Last night, you said-"

He whips around to face you. "You told me that you didn't remember what happened last night."

"I didn't at the time, but I-"

"What do you remember." 

"What does it-"

"What the fuck do you remember, Tord." His hands are clenched into fists. "Just answer the goddamn question."

The revelation hits you all at once. "You weren't blackout, were you? You remember last night. That's why you were so calm about everything this morning. You knew where we were."

He's not looking at you. "What do you remember, Tord."

You don't want to answer. "... You made me promise," you say, finally. "You made me promise that I wouldn't leave you again."

"And here you are. Leaving again." You can't read his expression. "Amazing how that works."

"I didn't think that-"

"No, you didn't," he interrupted. "You never do, huh?" 

"Tom." Your tone is pleading, but you don't know what you're pleading for.

"Forget it. Whatever. Classic, stupid Tom, right? Getting drunk and asking you to stay? Everything was better when I could just pretend that you were dead."

"I-"

He turns away from you. "The eggs are done."

"Tom, I-"

"Do you want some eggs." His tone is flat.

"Can I just-"

"Do you. Want. Eggs." The conversation is over. You don't know what you were expecting. 

"Sure," you say, because you don't really know what else to do. 

The eggs are burned to hell. 

\---

(he's curled up next to you in bed, the straps of his dress pushed down around his shoulders. your breathing is just starting to settle down. you think, distantly, that you should take the handcuffs off before you sleep, but it's not like you can feel your shoulders anyways. and besides. his arms are around you right now. you don't want him to move.

"you're gonna stay this time, righ'?" he mumbles, and you nod. "you gotta stay. i miss you."

"miss you too," you breathe, and he rubs his face up against your chest and you sigh. "'n i promised."

"'cept you lie sometimes," he says, and maybe red leader lies but right now you're tord, and tord never wants to leave him again. he's pulling the comforter up over the both of you, settling in for the night.

"'m not gonna leave 'cause i love you," you mumble, and he holds you tighter. "not goin' anywhere." 

"good," he says, and you when you drift off it's to the sound of his breathing.)

\---

Breakfast is silent.

He won't look at you, so you take the opportunity to study him as closely as you can, memorize the contours of his face and the bruises you left on his neck. You know that you're not coming back. 

"My ride's going to be here soon," you finally say, standing up to put your dishes away. He doesn't reply to that, just watches as you scrape his shit cooking into the garbage can and dump the plate into the sink. 

"Good," he says, with no enthusiasm whatsoever. He stays sitting at the kitchen table.

"... I can leave you my number," you offer, and you can tell even before he starts to laugh that he's not going to take it.

"Keep it," he says, "and get the hell out of my life." 

Your phone starts to ring and you grab it off the charger, gather up your clothes. You're still in Mark's sweatpants, but you figure you can wire him some money for replacements later. Maybe add a little more as thanks for-

Tom kisses you.

It's brief and it's shitty and it's not at all how you want to remember him, but there it is. He pushes you away after a second, gives you a long look. 

"Next time," he says, voice a monotone. "The next time I shoot you down, I'm not gonna miss."

"I expect nothing less." 

And this is where you leave him.

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this premise while hiking the Incan Trail and I hate myself for it. Originally, the title was going to be "Las Vegas Syndrome," but my beautiful and amazing beta reader (@jinxedlucky) told me to go for something more Fall Out Boy. Did I nail it?
> 
> Come say hi to me over at @idiosyncraticmagic on tumblr!


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